The Troubling History of “Innocence”

Miriam Ticktin once again brings forth the detriment that categorization causes for the group that does not fit the mold of “deservingness”. The image of Aylan washing up on a Turkish beach, did create a positive wave of action both towards bringing to light the atrocities that occur as a result of a migrant crisis but it also creates a system of exclusion which ignores a group which does not fit the image that aligns with innocence. Innocence as a categorization is dangerous when it comes to deciding who is worthy of resettlement. The concept of innocence is one which has been shaped and molded through generations of literature, policy and metaphors. It has become so imbedded into society that often the thought of who is innocent is not given much thought but it is the cause for many injustices and unfair treatment based on immutable characteristics that do not account for character. Ticktin mentions how the use of innocence often works to exclude a large community, particularly those that have darker skin, based on. The metaphors so deeply imbedded into society that it becomes an unconscious choice. Black bodies, particularly that of black men, are a group that have always lied on the opposite spectrum of innocence often being equated to being angry, violent and undeserving. The process of resettlement is grounded in an unconscious bias which affects the lives of those who do not fit the mold of innocence which has been taught in such discrete ways that it is often not realized. It is the prioritization of dreams and giving a future to those who look a certain way, or were born a certain sex regardless of the danger they are in. The concept of innocence is the most dangerous form of judgment as who it will be awarded to is determined long before the migrant ever enters the room. It is taught in the most discrete of ways, often never being able to be pinpointed to a single catalyst. It appears in textbooks, films, politics, religion and every other way of socialization becoming so embedded into the unconscious that by the time an African man is sitting before the case worker, the decision has been long made taking away the opportunities of a better life based on something they cannot control.